... appears to be non-existant in Liverpool. Or perhaps Brookside has yet to hear of it? Tonight, there are several instances where TACT, DIPLOMACY or CUNNING are involved. But these sophisticated manoeuvres never progress beyond the stages of puerile machinations. One wonders how one of the city’s football teams seems to have garnered so much success, as the general population seem like a right bunch of bulls in china shops.
Look at some of the current storylines ... The Bullies, for starters. OK, I accept that we live in a violent society. OK, I accept that lots more girls are violent now as well. But, as bullies go, girls are the deadlier of the two sexes, basically because they rely more on the SUBTLE art of connivance to achieve their terror. The bitchy remark. The veiled compliment. These are two things of which Imelda and Paige will never be the mistress, or even the master.
The Sage and his Disciple. A veritable Christmas story, but if Nikki is representative of uni students in Liverpool, they must be as thick as pigshit. Someone studying for a degree would seek research in bona fide places and from such people - not a semi-literate ex-con who was, this time last year, was banged up in a mental hospital.
And poor Jacqui Dixon. What has she ever done to merit such jealousy from people? Well, work steadily, for a start. And get married. I think Rachel is one of the thickest and dimmest characters ever to grace the art of soap opera, but Katie’s parting shot tonight was virtually a calling card to Jacqui to be on her guard. The best part of Brookside tonight was the last scene - symbolic to the core - and anyone NOT recognising the symbolism inherent there is two shades dimmer than Rachel. I name no names, but ask no questions ...
Morning at NNT and the Sugly Blisters are wreaking havoc in the kitchen. Face it, domestic goddesses they are not, well, poor pitiful Katie could be the goddess of grease. Katie is viewing Lady Muck with suspicion. Does Sammy really think a flash of leg will entrap Max Farnham?
Sammy is smugly confident, which raises the hackles on the neck of the more intelligent Brookside viewer. This means that the snide bitch is riding for a fall. We should hate her, and we do, and for this Rachel Lindsey is doing a great job.
Max is a man, she announces, uncertain that Katie may be aware of that fact. And like all men, his brains are in his trousers (and small enough to fit into the area inhabited by the gonads, judging from the Brookside male of the species).
Yeah, says Katie, dubiously, but that doesn’t mean that if one pushes the right buttons, one gets the right reactions.
He’s married, replies Sammy. He comes home from a long day dealing with the restaurant and shirty customers, expecting a wife who will shut up and put out. Instead, he gets a missis who’s dead tired. Max, Sammy announces, will be like putty in her greedy hands.
The camera catches a close-up of Katie’s ugly face, which suddenly appears very reluctant to enter into this scam.
Jimmy opens the door of Hotel Corkhill to greet his newest disciple, Nikki Shadwick. She’s called around on the off-chance that Jim would be at home. Jimmy announces happily that it’s his day off. Well, it’s Nikki’s day off too, but she’s having trouble with her newest essay, and she was on her way to a place called the Distance Learning Resource Centre to do some research. (Sorry, but it’s supposed to be the 19th of December. All the uni students who live on my street have been home for the hols since the weekend. OK, they’re all from the soft South - but hey, the boy across the street is in his THIRD year at ... JOHN MOORES!!! And he came home on Saturday. Hmmm ... Wonder if he knows Nikki? What I mean is, shouldn’t Nikki be on her Christmas break?)
Research? Echoes Jimmy. Ah, he’s done some research for her ... on the Internet. Something she said previously had struck a cord with him and so he’d done some surfing. Her remark that stayed with Jimmy was something to do with ‘medicating away legitimate pain’.
Nikki is grateful, but curious. Why should anyone WANT to feel pain?
Well, Jim begins to expound, he’s a good example. Right now, he’s OK. But the question is: Is he OK because of the tablets he takes or not? The only way to find out is to come off the tablets. Or is he brainwashed into renewing a prescription every month?
It’s all the fault, he reckons, of the pharmaceutical companies. Part of their dependency plan.
A visit next-door to Sitcom House. Marty Murray is late for work again and struggles to pull his jacket onto his sturdy, stocky, little frame, whilst shouting for Ant to come downstairs and hurry.
Antichrist Ant trudges dolefully into the room, wearing a 12 year-old lad’s version of Jackie Corkhill’s gungy bathrobe. (Now we know who inherited it!) He mumbles pathetically that he doesn’t want to go to school.
‘You and me both,’ snaps Marty, irritably, before glancing up to see that the lad’s not even dressed.
Before Marty can ask him anything, Ant flops onto a chair and begins to sob. He begs Marty not to make him go to school. Marty tries to urge him to be brave. He’ll look out for the lad. There are the two of them, together, he encourages.
Ant pleads not to go to school. Marty has no idea what Paige and Imelda will do to him. They’ll get him again, he cries. The teachers can’t stop them; Marty can’t stop them. Sooner or later, he says, they’ll kill him.
At the Dixon House of Horrors, Miserable Mike and the One-Brain-Cell Wonder sit on the floor, wrapping packages. Rachel wears Mike’s security hat, to protect the empty cavity that is her skull. Labouriously she leans over a package, tongue agog in concentration, writing a simple Christmas message on the pressie, that taxes her limited integrity.
She slurps noisily inward. ‘To Har-reh’n ... Em-mah ... >From Auntie Rachel and Ooncle M-eye-ke’. (Probably written thus: ‘2 Hary and Ema frum Ante Rachel and Unkel Mike.’ And printed too!!!)
Mike admonishes her not to forget Maxim’s and Jaxim’s presents. There, Rachel announces, all finished. She feels more Christmassy already.
Too right, agrees Mike. Just let that sister of his try to patronise them! They’ll show’em. (Yeah, and they’ll come around begging for Jacqui to get them out of schtook as well).
Rachel nods dumbly and blinks. ‘Joost let them Faah-nems tell them what ter do,’ she brags.
Over at the bar, Christy Murray, who seems to have dispensed royally with Leanne, is nursing a hangover. Tim notices his condition and deliberately slams a tray of tins loudly on the countertop. He jokes with Christy that he thought that after-hours drinking was supposed to be part of the perks of that job.
Christy waves him irritably off and motions to a package nearby. Tim is to take a crate of Christmas drink around to Marty’s, he orders. Something Christy got at price and he’s giving it as a present to Marty, seeing as poor Mart hasn’t had the time nor the inclination to bring in the booze this Chrimbo.
Tim asks why Christy doesn’t go around, himself.
No, thank YOU, replies Christy, firmly. He’s fed up with another chapter in the life and trials of St. Antony Murray. Always moaning about kids picking on him at school, the little pious prat. He’s even got poor Marty a nervous wreck. Christy can’t fathom that brother of his - why he doesn’t just tell the little prick to give whoever’s giving him a hard time, one helluva backhander and simply get on with it. That was what their old man used to tell them as kids.
Tim asks Christy for more info re the ‘big job’ Christy’s lining up. Ah, yes! Remembers Christy. That! He asks Tim if he’s aware of the delivery man from the brewery. Well, it seems that this chappie let Christy down big-time awhile back, and now it’s payback time. Christy knows that the fella does a drop in his van at the Black Bull. The idea is for Christy and Tim to follow him there, and when he’s inside the pub -
The van’s nicked, finishes Tim.
Yes, well, Tim nicks the van, corrects Christy. Is he up for it?
Is he? But first, Tim continues warily, he needs to hear some terms and conditions from Christy.
There are none, says Christy, shortly, and warns Tim not to breathe a word of this to anyone.
Marty Murray is having an uneasy telephone conversation with the sourpuss Mrs Plummer, whilst we hear an unseen Ant sobbing upstairs in the background. He’s explaining to the woman that he won’t be in to work today because he’s ill. Yes, he knows that there’s a meeting this afternoon, but illness is just one of those things. He breaks off for a moment to quell Antony, who’s shouting for him to come upstairs. He then makes a second phone call to the salon to leave a message for Dire regarding Antony’s current state.
At Chateau Farnham, Jacqui sits under the tree with the kids, examining the presents. It’s quite a different scenario from last year’s Farnham Christmas, with Susannah’s coffin dominating proceedings. She rises from the floor and goes to the wall to straighten a Christmas card, that’s taped to the wallpaper to hide the bit that’s been torn away.
Maxim enters the room, ready for a day’s work, and asks the kids if they thought that ‘Mummy’ had done a wonderful job on the decorations. Looking about the place, he suddenly realises how small the house seems now that the children were getting bigger. Perhaps they should think about moving?
(What? Jacqui move from Brookside Close? Perish the thought - although a Farnham house move COULD be on the cards if the actress and actor get the shits of the way certain production people treat their characters).
Why move? Asks Jacqui. Why couldn’t they just build an extension?
Max thinks a moment and then readily agrees. After all, Ron had done so, easily. (Er, where is the Dixon extension?) It would mean more space for the kids, Jacqui reminds him.
Max agrees that they will go about extending the house as next year’s project. And as for ‘Mummy’, well, ‘Mummy’ would be getting her reward for such nice decorations from ‘Daddy’ later.
Jacqui cries off. Sorry, but no. She’s exhausted. As soon as 9PM rolls around, she’s fast asleep. Max teases her, saying he could persuade her otherwise, but Jacqui says NOTHING could relieve her from her exhausted need for sleep after a day with two toddlers. In fact, she’s looking forward to Christmas, as a time for much-needed rest. By the way, would Max be home for his dinner, er lunch? She asks, remembering her social class now.
Depends what’s on the menu, teases Max, again.
Not rising to the bait, Jacqui replies that she would see what she could rustle up for him and the kids.
As Max departs, his face is a wonderful picture of sexual frustration.
(Question: Why does Jacqui feel the need to prove to Max that she has to single-handedly look after the house and the children and forfeit her career? Neither Patricia nor Susannah did as such - and both these women relied heavily on cleaning ladies (Bev/Julia/Jessie) and nannies (Margaret/Anna/Trona) to help them out.)
Back at NNT, Lady Muck is expounding on her plans to ruin Jacqui’s life to her glum-faced sister, poor, pitiful Katie. Jacqui rushed head-on into this marriage, she says. She did so so fast that she simply didn’t know what hit her. Most people, Sammy says, when they get married have a couple of years together on their own before the kids arrive. (Of course, Sammy Rogers would be such an expert on this - being pregnant when she married Owen and then brining a ready-made family to Richard).
They have time for holidays together and dirty weekends -
Jacqui’s certainly had her share of those, comments poor, pitiful Katie, unjustly. (Question: When? Jacqui Dixon has never been what I would call promiscuous. She lost her virginity ot Carl Banks, and that was a one-off. She then had a fling with the video producer. She had her first serious relationship with the Aussie lad, Shane, who died. She didn’t get past first base with Ben O’Leary. Apart from Shane, her only other serious long-term relationships were with Nathan, Gobby and now Max. OK, they were in quick succession, but look at Katie [who started considerably earlier than Jacqui] - weird Simon as a teenager, weird Christian, whom she bequeathed to Rachel [both lengthy affairs], video producer, Musgrove brothers simultaneously and Moffatt brothers. Katie’s the slag here).
Sammy continues. Mark you, Jacqui did herself no favours by marrying a man with two youngsters. And look at Max Farnham anyway! Max is a man who wants his sex on the kitchen table, Sammy reckons.
And Sammy would know that? Interjects Katie.
Well, he seems the sort, Sammy amends. And as for Jacqui, why, she couldn’t provide that. She’d be too worried about creasing the table cloth to accommodate him in that department.
Anyway, Sammy’s got the plan all figured. Katie should call around to Jacqui’s today as soon as possible. She’s to let Jacqui know that she wants to put all that’s happened during the past few months behind her and renew her friendship with Jacqui. Then, Katie is to suggest that she and Jacqui meet the following evening for drinks, to clear the air.
Sammy, meanwhile, will pay a visit to Max at The Shelf, where the seduction technique will begin in earnest. Then she and Max will adjourn upstairs to the flat, where Katie will later bring Jacqui and - hey presto! - one marriage ruined.
The Sage of Brookside Close, AKA the Professor of Pain, is expounding his philosophy to his latest disciple. His current pet subject is the medical profession and - in particular - the pharmaceutical companies and how they control it to their own ends. People these days, says Jimmy, aren’t aware of what system is working for or against them, anymore than they are sure of what medication they are taking and whether or not it’s helpful for them in the long run.
Nikki comments that she thinks Jimmy’s brilliant. (Sorry, but this is supposed to be a university student, albeit one who has no friends per se amongst the academic community. And she thinks a semi-literate scally who’s just come off a sectioning order to be brilliant and informative?)
Jimmy expounds that, in a perfect world, medicine should be there to serve the public. But today, it’s just ‘diagnosis, prognosis, tablets’ and a body’s supposed to get better. It’s not really caring and the end result is a generation tricked inot popping pills.
Nikki listens reflectively. Sombrely, she admits that she hit the bottle at one point in her life, in order to deal with a crisis.
And some people reach for tablets, reminds Jimmy. But who’s there to blow the whistle on prescriptions? He wants to know. In the end, he continues, the medical profession is all in hock to the multi-nationals. Big business at the end of the day. It’s all a conspiracy, he reckons, to get people addicted to pain killers.
And Nikki buys this crap.
Silly Rachel opens the door of the House of Horrors to admit the two Farnham horrors and their mother. She directs Harry and Emma upstairs to play with Beth and ushers Jacqui into the lounge, where Mike lies prone on the sofa, dressed in his jim-jams and dressing gown.
Rachel is wittering about how n-eye-ce it is fer Be-yeth to see her coosins, whilst Jacqui jokes that Mike looks as though he were ready for bed.
Mike is not amused. He IS ready for bed, he answers sourly. He was about to go upstairs to bed. He DOES have to work tonight, he reminds Jacqui, jealous that she can afford the luxury of NOT working.
Anyway, Jacqui continues, she has a present for Mike, and she hands him a sealed envelope. It’s from Ron, she informs the couple. Mike opens the envelope to fine £100 in cash awaiting him. He looks annoyed, whilst Rachel licks her lips hungrily. (Yoom, yoom, that mo-neh could b-eye lorra choc’lut).
Jacqui explains that Ron realises that Mike and Rachel might be a bit hard up this Christmas. The ‘oondred quid was to enable them to buy a few extras for themselves and Beth. He’d arranged for Jacqui to take the money from her account and he would pay her back when he was released.
Mike tells Jacqui that he doesn’t want the money and hands the envelope back to her. Jacqui insists that it’s a gift from Ron, but Mike says he doesn’t want that kind of gift, either from his father or from her. He reminds her that this time last year, he was in a coma. He’s spent the better part of a year in a wheelchair, unable to do for himself. But now he’s fit again, he doesn’t want to be beholden to anyone. So he says to Jacqui: ‘Tanks, boot no no tanks.’ (He’s been watching too much of that Afghan war on CNN, methinks).
He’s going to bed, he announces, standing up. And he wants Jacqui to know that he wants no hand-outs and, above all, nothing of this sort to ease Ron’s conscience or Jacqui’s. As he passes his sister, he gives her a self-satisfied sneer behind her back, but we all know that he’s cut his snotty nose off despite his face.
Meanwhile, back at NNT, Sammy is still trying to persuade poor, pitiful greasy Katie of the efficacy of her plan to wreck Jacqui’s happiness. Katie isn’t so sure. It would mean that she would have to sit and suffer the presence of the dreaded Jacqui Dixon for an entire evening, whilst making small talk.
Sammy asks rhetorically if Katie were serious about hurting Jacqui.
Katie’s beady eyes narrow even more. Sammy reckons Max would go along with this scheme?
‘He’ll have no choice not to,’ purrs Sammy, supremely confident.
Katie is still unconvinced.
What’s the matter with Katie? Sammy demands impatiently. First she’s howling for revenge, then she’s afraid of her own shadow. Is she forgetting that Ron shot and killed the sainted Clint? And that Jacqui, her so-called bezzy mate, sided with her dad instead of Katie? (It’s called ‘family’, Sammy - not that you’d know anything about that). As far as Jacqui was concerned, Sammy continues, Katie didn’t matter.
Well, begins Katie, hesitantly, when Sammy put it that way ... She continues by telling Sammy that she sneaked over to the Dixons’ on the day that Jacqui and Max were married. She hadn’t intended on going, but she followed Gobby Moffatt, who was off his head (when was he not?) at the fact that Jacqui was actually marrying Max. She stood there with Gobby, peering through the hole in the fence at Jacqui and Max standing in the garden, kissing. AND POOR CLINT NOT EVEN COLD IN HIS GRAVE!!!!!
‘You’d’a thought she would have postponed the wedding,’ remarks Sammy, sympathetically but illogically.
Or at least not have had the reception at the place where the killing of the Sainted One occurred. (Why? People get married at Canterbury Cathedral all the time, standing on the blood of St Thomas a Becket. Is Clint any better than he? I think not).
No, Katie reasons, the more Sammy talks about it, the more Katie realises that she really wants to follow through with this scheme.
Good, announces Sammy, with finality. Then between the two of them, they’ll teach that Jacqui Dixon a lesson. They’s make sure that in one week Jacqui’s marriage will be history.
Dire Murray stomps purposely through her front door, her hair freshly bleached and her face freshly lacquered and varnished. What’s the matter with Ant? She demands, peremptorily. That stupid girl at the salon only gave her Marty’s message ten minutes ago, otherwise she’d have been home sooner. (What stupid girl? Emily?)
Marty is sitting on the sofa, apparently in a baffled state of worried concern. Ant’s not ill, he says, absently. At least, he’s not SICK.
Dire’s hard face screws up into a reasonable facsimile of puzzlement.
Marti continues his soliloquy, gazing off into the distance. He’d never seen Antony in such a state before, he babbles. Going on about he couldn’t go to school, if he went to school ‘they’ would kill him. Oh, the lad had come to him a few times during school hours, telling Marty how worried the lad was; but Marty only just shooed him away, told him everything would be OK. He certainly didn’t see this thing coming.
When Tim returns to the bar, Christy asks if he managed to take the crate around to the Murrays’. Tim admits that he left the crate with Marty. He was off work, looking after Ant, who was ill.
‘Hmmph!’ Snorts Christy. ‘Probably recovering from his stigmata.’
He asks Tim if Tim’s mobile is pay-as-you-go. When Tim admits that it is, Christy hands him a crisp 20-pound note. That’s for his phone. Tim’s to make sure that it’s fully charged and topped up with credit, and he isn’t to use that money for needless phone calls to Emily.
Tim susses that Christy’s ‘big job’ is a deffo. He asks when this will take place. Christy tells him that that was the purpose of the 20-pound advance. He wants Tim to be ready to roll on a moment’s notice. And by the way, the 20 quid is coming out of his wages.
He orders Tim to finish filling the cooler cabinet, whilst Christy turns his attention to the bar, muttering to a waiting punter who looks like Mo, Rosie Banks’s sister, that one just couldn’t get the staff these days!
Back at Sitcom House, Dire Murray descends the stairs, only to be met by a concerned Marty. Antony is out like a light, she informs him. It almost seems as though the lad’s suffering from some sort of nervous exhaustion.
Marty wonders if they should call the doctor. Dire shakes her infinitely knowledgeable head, bleached so much that it’s free from germs and impure thoughts. The child’s scared witless, she announces.
Marty walks quietly to the door from the foyer into the lounge and softly closes it. Turning to Dire, he asks gingerly if she thinks Antony is ‘normal’.
Dire’s face screws up again. Normal? What’s ‘normal’? She asks, harshly.
Marty struggles to find the right words to explain what he means. (And Neil Caple puts in another brilliant performance). Well, for starters, when Marty was Ant’s age, all he ever thought about was playing footie with a load of mates. He can’t remember when Antony even had a mate around the house. In fact, the lad never mentions having any mates. And there are times at school, when Marty sees Ant stuck off on his own when the other lads his age are just messing around in groups. Steve was never like that, he remarks.
The Sainted Mother can see nothing unusual about Antony’s behaviour and says so. So the boy’s not a chip off the old block. He’s a sensitive lad, who - thankfully - doesn’t approve of violence.
But, Marty continues, uneasily, there are other things as well. Like all that rubbish in his room upstairs. Why, other lads his age have posters of Britney Spears in their rooms. Ant has the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When Marty was a lad, he had model airplanes in his room. Ant has statues of St Antony of Padua and other religious icons. Dire must admit ... That’s not normal.
Dire doesn’t think it’s abnormal at all, in the warped mind of a hypocritical Catholic. In fact, Marty’s only worried because it reflects badly on him. Big, tough Marty Murray has a son who isn’t out kicking a plastic ball or nicking hubcaps.
That’s not the way he sees it at all, argues Marty, but as usual, he can’t get a word in edgeways, when Motorbleach gets going. What kind of father questions his son’s normalcy?
Marty shouts that the kind of father who would question his son’s normalcy, is the kind who’s worried that the lad won’t be able to function in the real world.
Nikki Shadwick has returned from her visit to the Distance Learning Resource Centre and made a beeline for her guru at Hotel Corkhill. She’s just dropped by to ask if Jimmy would put some of the ‘research’ he got off the net onto a floppy for her. When Margi left for Brussels, she left the girls an ancient laptop, and Nikki would be able to read the info Jimmy had procured.
Well, what do you know? Whilst Nikki was out, Jimmy printed off an interesting article by some conspiracy theorist on the Internet. He hands it to her. This fella, he explains, reckons that TPTB (not at Mersey Television) have actually found a cure for cancer, but they won’t publish the formula!
Why not? Asks Nikki.
Because, says the Sage, mysteriously, it would mean a drop in drugs’ profits.
Nikki is shocked, but Jimmy asks why she should be shocked. After all, medicine is a business and businesses have to make profits.
Yes, argues Nikki, piously, but the NHS is here to look after the health of people in this country.
But what about countries which don’t have NHS’s? Asks Jimmy, provocatively. Where people have to walk two days to the hospital and then have no money yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda ...
Nikki’s face assumes a worried frown. Perhaps she should have a talk with that Dr Do-A-Little. After all, he was always being wined and dined by those reps from pharmaceutical companies, and pulling out a pen, she begins to furiously scribble notes as Jimmy expounds further.
Noticing the felt-tip pen, bearing a generic drug name, Jimmy asks if she got that pen from Neil. Nikki nods.
‘I don’t know,’ mutters Jim, ‘free pens, free lunches ...’
Nikki gathers up her material, excusing herself by telling Jimmy that she has to go home and read all the wonderful stuff he found for her. If this is the best research a uni student can do, I feel supremely sorry for her. She would do well to remember how Adele fared when Jimmy helped her with an essay.
Jacqui Dixon-Farnham stands next to the family Christmas tree, having a conversation on the phone with Max. She relates to him the tale about trying to give Ron’s cash present to Mike. Mike was knocking on about being treated as a charity case, she says. She then tells Max that the kids are fine.
Suddenly, the doorbell sounds. Jacqui excuses herself, joking to Max that it’s probably Mike having second thoughts and coming to grovel an apology.
When she opens the door, however, she sees poor, pitiful, ugly Katie gazing at Jacqui’s people-carrier parked in the driveway. Jacqui’s eyes shoot hurriedly in the direction of the car.
Katie immediately reassures Jacqui that she hasn’t come to wreck her car. Jacqui replies by warning Katie that she doesn’t want any bother. She’s got the children upstairs and any kick-off will frighten them. What does Katie want?
Katie, in a small voice, says that she wants to apologise, but Jacqui is immediately on her guard. She has no time for this, she says and begins to shut the door. Katie immediately grabs the door before it shuts. She really does want to call a truce, she says. She thinks that they should talk. She’s ready to move on, please.
Against her better judgement, Jacqui lets the wretch into the house. She asks Katie if she wants a drink and whilst she goes off to prepare a tea, Katie sourly and jealously gazes around the room.
Jacqui notices her looking around, although she doesn’t see the look on Katie’s face. Jacqui asks what Katie is thinking.
Katie remembers when Jacqui was training as a swimmer, how Jacqui used to say that she would never end up keeping house and changing nappies. Now look at her. What Jacqui had, Katie continues, was actually what Katie had wanted all along - 5 kids and a suburban semi.
Jacqui twists her mouth in sympathy and tells Katie that she’s genuinely sorry about Clint.
Don’t be, Katie replies. Clint’s dead. She can say it now. She knows he’s not coming back.
Jacqui shakes her head and remarks that she doesn’t know how Katie’s managed all these months. (She hasn’t., Jacqui. She hasn’t). Something like that would have killed Jacqui.
Katie deflects the comment and asks how Jacqui’s coping with her ready-made family. Jacqui admits that it isn’t easy coping with a house and two small children, but hey - Max, Harry and Emma - they’re her reason for living.
Katie shrugs non-chalantly and suggests that she and Jacqui have a night out tomorrow night. Jacqui demurs. She isn’t sure, sensing something not quite right about this sudden invitation.
Come on, Katie urges. They need a night out, some quality time together to iron out their differences for the past few months. She genuinely wants to be friends again.
Finally, Jacqui agrees, reckoning that Adele Murray wouldn’t mind babysitting, and suggests that they meet at The Shelf.
Katie instantly poo-poohs that idea. How about someplace neutral, she suggests, like Bev’s.
Jacqui reckons that the sight of Leanne Powell’s face might put her off her food, but Katie attempts some of her old demeanor and says that anyone taking off one of Katie’s mates would have to deal with tough Katie.
The two agree to meet at Bev’s at 7:00PM and Katie rises to leave. Jacqui stops her briefly to tell her sincerely that it’s good to see her again. Katie mumbles, not too convincingly, that it’s good to see Jacqui too.
Jacqui sees her to the door, and as the door shuts behind poor, pitiful Katie, her ugly face becomes even more contorted and ugly. She scrabbles in her bag and takes out her house key. As she walks down the driveway, she viciously digs the key into the paintwork along the length of Jacqui’s new car.
As the wretch walks away, the final scene is of Katie leaving the Close as seen through a spider web with an insect caught in the centre. But is this someone looking through a window where there’s a spider web, who’s witnessed what she’s done? Could it be Jacqui?
I wonder ...
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001